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Fastest Man in Pads May Be Florida’s Tailback

The Florida freshman tailback Jeffrey Demps is averaging 13.3 yards a carry, first in the nation among players with at least 20 carries.Credit
Danny Johnston/Associated Press

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Last April, during spring football practice at the University of Florida, a collective gasp came from a track meet across the street. Jeffrey Demps had just run the fifth-fastest 100 meters by an American high school sprinter, 10.17 seconds. Even better, he was a Gators football recruit.

“The rest of the day, I’m not really sure what happened at practice,” said Coach Urban Meyer, who heard the time over the public-address system. “I was so excited we had a guy joining the program that could run sub-10.2. I’ve never witnessed that.”

In late June, at the Olympic track and field trials, Demps ran even faster, setting a national high school record of 10.01 and matching the world junior record for the 100 — a time equal to the seventh-place finish at the Beijing Games. Now a freshman tailback at fifth-ranked Florida, he appears to be the swiftest running back ever to play college or professional football, according to track historians and an examination of performance lists compiled by USA Track and Field.

At 18, Demps is already much faster than famous predecessors like Herschel Walker (10.23), O. J. Simpson (10.3) and Bo Jackson (10.44), slightly faster even than Bob Hayes (10.05), the 1964 Olympic champion at 100 meters who played running back at Florida A.&M. before becoming an All-Pro receiver with the Dallas Cowboys.

Of course, coaches distinguish between track speed and football speed — the ability to run fast and evasively while wearing pads. At 5 feet 8 inches and 180 pounds, Demps seems to have plenty of both. Florida’s leading rusher, he is averaging 13.3 yards a carry, first in the nation among those with at least 20 carries. His four touchdown runs of 36-plus yards are longer than any that Florida had in 2007, giving the Gators’ spread offense a threat broader than when quarterback Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore.

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Demps set the national high school record for 100 meters in 10.01 seconds last June.Credit
Brandon Kruse/The Gainesville Sun

“You’re not going out on a limb to call him the fastest running back and one of the fastest few players ever to play the game,” Jon Hendershott, a track historian and associate editor of Track and Field News, said of Demps, who is from Okahumpka, Fla.

Since players seldom run 100 yards in one burst, the 40-yard dash has become football’s most common measure of ballistic velocity. But these results are widely discounted by track experts because the timing lacks uniformity and precision. Florida has not bothered clocking Demps, who ran 4.31 as a high school sophomore. It seems beside the point.

Meyer craves speed the way sumo wrestlers crave calories. He and other coaches in the Southeastern Conference are placing small sprinters in the backfield, not just at receiver, as football grows faster. At Louisiana State, for instance, Trindon Holliday, a receiver/back, has finished second and third in the 100 at the N.C.A.A. track championships and has a personal best of 10.02.

A dozen Florida football players run the 40 in 4.4 or faster. This includes the redshirt freshman running back Chris Rainey, who ran the leadoff leg on Florida’s 4x100-meter relay team that finished third at the 2008 N.C.A.A. championships.

“I think the small, fast running back has a place in football,” said Les Miles, the L.S.U. coach, whose reigning national champion Tigers were pummeled by Florida, 51-21, on Oct. 11, when Demps rushed for 129 yards, including a 42-yard touchdown. “It’s probably a role that will expand the way football is going.”

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Jeffrey Dempss four touchdown runs of 36-plus yards are longer than any Florida had last season with its spread offense.Credit
Brandon Kruse/The Gainesville Sun

A team has only a 20 percent chance of scoring on a drive with no plays beyond 15 yards, Meyer has calculated. One play of 15 or more yards increases the chances to 50 percent. Two plays raise the chance to 80 percent. The fastest players are the ones most likely to make the biggest plays. So Meyer gets them the ball as frequently and creatively as possible. Percy Harvin, a Gators receiver, has also played running back and taken direct snaps from center.

“We want the fastest team in the country,” Meyer said. “If you can run fast, Florida will call you.”

Demps’s best time in the 100 is faster than Jackson’s best by several feet, a considerable distance. When most young sprinters strike the track with great force, they are unable to fluidly absorb the rebounding energy, Mike Holloway, Florida’s track coach said. Ankles and knees tend to wobble, form is disrupted and speed decreases. Sometimes, a hamstring muscle is strained. Demps appears different, more elastic.

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“I’ve never seen anybody his age strike the ground the way he does and be able to handle it,” Holloway said. “He bounces off the track almost like a pogo stick.”

Speed is indispensable to football, but it also remains suspect. Many coaches appear as wary of sprinters as they are of kickers.

The two seemingly fastest football players beyond high school — Jim Hines, the 1968 Olympic champion in the 100; and John Capel, a receiver at Florida in 1998 and 1999 — ran 9.95 but never really made the transition from sprinting. Capel’s professional football and track careers false-started after he tested positive for marijuana. Hines played two professional seasons at receiver, but was nicknamed Oops because his hands were not as reliable as his feet.

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The difference, as Demps sees it, is, “I consider myself a football player first.”

But upon his arrival at Florida after the Olympic trials, questions lingered about Demps’s football ability. Sprinting is essentially controlled falling. It requires linear speed, feet close together, always parallel. Football also requires cutting and lateral speed, with feet set wider apart to maintain balance, change direction, throw a block.

During summer workouts, when coaches were not permitted to oversee the players, Meyer had two questions about Demps: Could he change direction? Could he catch the ball? The answers were sometimes troubling.

“Coach, his feet are too fast for his body,” Harvin told Meyer. “He falls down a lot.”

During the first practice in pads, Meyer grew more encouraged. Demps maintained his blistering speed in his football gear. When he stood his ground in a hitting drill, Meyer pumped his fist and told Marotti, the strength coach, “We got us one!”

Extensive work with cutting drills has sharpened Demps’s maneuverability. Now he knows to plant his outside leg when changing direction. And he no longer falls down. (“In a short period, he’s improved more than any athlete I’ve seen,” Marotti said.) Against Miami on Sept. 6, Demps crouched in a sprinter’s stance and blocked a punt. He has since become the Gators’ most aggressive player on kickoff coverage.

“It’s not even close,” Meyer said. “He’s as valuable a guy as we’ve got.”

At tailback, Demps was brought along slowly out of concern that his confidence might falter. In retrospect, Meyer said he was overly cautious. Demps had already demonstrated equanimity under pressure at the Olympic trials. He was clearly ready for football’s big time against L.S.U. He ran around the Tigers’ defense on options and pounced straight ahead on quick hitters, bursting through gaps 3 and 4 yards wide along Florida’s offensive line.

“When you give guys like Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey space, you’re going to create some drama,” said Kenny Carter, who coaches Florida’s running backs. “Now, a linebacker or secondary guy has to contend with them and they’re at full speed. We like our chances.”

Demps will run track at Florida, but even with his 10.01, he has yet to regularly produce world-class speed, an attribute television commentators frequently and misleadingly give to fast football players. Demps did not reach the final of the Olympic trials. Later, he watched the Beijing Games as Usain Bolt of Jamaica lowered the world record to 9.69. Asked if he could conceive of running that fast, Demps smiled and said: “I can’t imagine. It’s like a video game.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Fastest Man in Pads May Be Florida’s Tailback. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe